tm1000 - Rapid Air Weapons

WIN!
Airgun
THE LATEST RAIDER 10 HUNTING COMBO WORTH £500!
BRITAIN’S BIGGEST SELLING AIRGUN MAGAZINE
WORLD
March 2012 £3.90
T
S
R
FI
UK
ST
TE
R.A.W.
POTENTIAL!
TM1000
EXCLUSIVE
FULL-CONTROL HUNTING
TESTED
Why we need it
S.H.O.T. SHOW REPORT
Webley Raider 10
R.A.W. TM1000
Umarex Dark Ops
Air Arms TDR
NiteSite NS50
Hawke Scope
Harkila Boots
Direct from Vegas!
HIGH POWER
Is it for you?
CUSTOM LASER & LAMP JOB
Fingertip control!
PLUS
Team Wild
Undercover!
George is on
a roost raid!
UBC goes
Benchrest!
w w w. airgunshoot ing.co.uk
EDitor’ s TES T: r.a.w. tm1000
Success in
the r.a.w.
A new supergun is born in the USA – and it’s on its way here
V
ery few Airgun World readers
will have heard of Rapid Air
Weapons, but that’s about to change.
Known in its native Tennessee as
RAW, this company is headed by a
Brit, one Martin Rutterford, formerly
of Theoben, and was established in
2006. Initially, RAW manufactured
precision components for the
shooting industry and having forged
a reputation for high quality, the
company has made the jump to full
rifle production with the TM1000.
Overview
You’ll notice the TM1000 when it
hoves into view at a field target
course near you. It’s metalwork is
expertly anodised in a matte silvergrey, and there’s likely to be a small
crowd around it, at least until the
TM1000 becomes a more common
fixture on the FT circuit. The metal
finish was chosen for its heatreflective qualities, and seeing that
this rifle will be marketed worldwide,
that has to be a smart move. Stealth
doesn’t matter in the world of
competition, but pellet impact points
changing due to movement caused
by the baking sun certainly do.
Reflecting solar radiation is way
better than absorbing it, at least it is
in the minds of the top shots for
whom the RAW TM1000 is designed.
Appealing to, and appeasing, the
mindset of top level competitors is a
major factor in a sport where
everything has to be right ‘mentally’
as well as mechanically, and
worrying about your rifle shifting
when the sun beats down will cost
you points sooner or later. Many
shooters who haven’t ‘been there’
mock the importance attributed to
the psychological side of target
shooting, and dismiss it as ‘a load of
fuss about nothing’. How wrong they
are. Knowing that your hardware has
been prepared for every eventuality is
a genuine step toward winning. That’s
why the best in the business do
everything they can to eliminate every
possible variable and take control
over every possible aspect. If you
don’t do that, your opponents will and
they’ll have an advantage over you …
and you’ll know that. This reduces
confidence, allows doubt and
hesitancy to creep in, and efficiency
to leak out.
So, mental conditioning is vital, and
RAW know that. RAW is also fully
aware that mechanical efficiency is
the real key to belief and confidence,
and having the barrel floating free of
any influence from the air reservoir is
a standard tactic these days. This
rifle’s degree of ‘float’ is considerable,
and any idea of the tiny changes in
the reservoir being passed to the
barrel is a non-starter. The barrel
itself is a Lothar Walther, seen here
AIRGUN WORLD
19
E D ’ S T E S T: R.A.W. TM1000
Plenty of manual
loading room.
The major components of the
TM1000 are machined from solid
aluminium billets, and hardened
for strength and durability
where required. The reservoir
is hydro-tested aluminium,
incorporated for lightness
and strength, and the exterior
fixing bolts are stainless steel.
Be in no doubt, this is a serious
piece of kit, pointed directly at
winning major championships.
STOCK OPTIONS
Adjustment and support
= total control.
in
its
highpower
specification of
23 inches, whereas
the 12 ft.lbs. versions
will feature a 19 inch
version. The ported shroud is
stainless steel, although there’s a
trick-looking carbon fibre one
available as an optional extra.
20
AIRGUN WORLD
Rapid Air Weapons has its own stock
manufacturing facility and
currently offers two
options, both in
American
walnut. I’ve
been using the
thumbhole, as
have quite a few
before me according to
the amount of ‘dings’ and
scratches on it. Bagsy I didn’t
do them, anyway. The thing is,
this is a test rifle and that means it’s
shot hard and frequently. During my
own tests I deliberately over-cranked
the sidelever, squeezed the trigger too
hard and filled the air reservoir too
quickly, because tests are supposed
to expose potential failure due to
moderate abuse. No such failures
were unearthed during the month I
had the TM1000, and I winced every
time I abused it. Some rifles are built
with such precision that chimping-out
on them really amounts to a hatecrime. In truth, during normal use,
any over-stressing of any part of the
TM1000 would have to be done
deliberately by not-very-bright
shooters, and while I can’t see that
ever happening, it’s good to know
resistance to it is built in to the rifle.
Back to the stock, which I found
gave me exactly the sort of support
I’ve been chuntering on about in my
‘full-control sporter’ crusade. With a
cheek piece and butt pad that offer
vertical and lateral adjustment, I
Push-fit charge connector
- as you’d expect.
wasn’t
surprised
at the degree
of fit, comfort and
control. I particularly
liked the finger grooves
and palm shelf built into the
grip, although the stippling was a
little less grippy than I’d prefer. RAW
has gone with a tough, all weather
varnish because FT is an all weather
sport, but I think the varnish has
literally taken the edge off the
stippling. It’s probably a good sign
that I’m criticising the depth of the
stock’s stippling; hardly a dealbreaker, is it? Personally, I’d like to
see the top edge of the stock have an
inward chamfer to produce a
smoother meeting of metalwork and
timber, and again I’m reduced to
petty criticism.
As a more significant suggestion,
I’d like to see a laminated stock
offered for this rifle, preferably with
a choice of colours that would
contrast beautifully with the action
finish (RAW will love me for this …
not), but knowing Martin Rutterford,
he’ll have already explored this
option and no doubt he’ll get back
to me on it. If anything emerges, I’ll
let you know.
EDITOR’S TE S T : R.A.W. TM1000
All in all,
this stock
does exactly
what a target
stock should,
in terms of
control and stability,
plus it has an
accessory rail fitted to
the underside of the fore
end, so your add-ons are
sorted, too. Finally, if you’d rather
have a non-thumbhole design, RAW
has one available on the order form.
trigger but that
mechanism is a
thing of tactile beauty.
Combined with the
supreme ease of sliding back
the sidelever, I found myself dryfiring the TM1000 far more than was
actually necessary to judge
mechanical performance. These
tragic little indulgences will be
understood by most out there, so I’m
not ashamed to admit to them. Tweak
the hands-on mechanics of a
TM1000 and you’ll know exactly what
I mean.
WHERE IT CAME FROM
FROM BENCH TO FIELD
I believe by now I’ve hammered home
the message that this is a full-on
target rifle. This isn’t in the least
surprising because the original brief
was to create a match winning
benchrest machine. As regular
readers of our own Graham
Freeman’s benchrest articles will
understand, this discipline is ultraprecise and every possible accuracy
advantage has to be exploited. Even
the potential movement of the rifle in
its rests, caused by the pulling of a
bolt-action, was undesirable, and a
sidelever system had to be developed.
Not just any sidelever system, though.
This rifle had to have an ultra-smooth,
negligible-effort, hyper-ergonomic
sidelever system, and judging by the
prototype I’ve been shooting, that’s
exactly what it got.
The morph into a field target rifle was
inevitable, and the thumbhole stock
was brought in to accommodate the
move. The rifle was already
weatherproof, so taking it out in the
elements wouldn’t be a challenge for
the designers.
Those same designers had also
built the rifle with plenty of loading
room in the breech block, and seating
each pellet with a traditional thumb is
simplicity itself, even against the
clock. At first, I nudged the sidelever
a few times, closing the breech before
I’d inserted the pellet, but going
under the lever soon became
automatic and within a dozen ‘loads’ I
was doing it without looking.
The same goes for the air-charging
system, which is as you’d expect a
snap-on design, referred to as a
“RAW HAS CREATED
SOMETHING REALLY
SPECIAL HERE”
Martin Rutterford’s connection with
Theoben manifested itself in the main
firing valve and the basic trigger
componentry, but that’s where Rapid
Air Weapons said its farewells to
Theoben Rapid technology and went
its own way. Even the Rapid
components used were ‘re-profiled’
and the trigger mechanism fitted with
a different spring setup to create the
required upgrade in sensitivity
between sporting and match. Again, if
this prototype’s trigger is the
yardstick, RAW has created
something really special. I’m
surprised to see a sportingly curved,
fixed position blade rather than a goanywhere, straight-bladed match
‘Foster style’ coupling. Each 200-bar
charge of the 180cc air reservoir
yields around 120 shots in .177 at
11-plus ft.lbs., and the rifle’s regulator
restricts the variation over 50 shots to
a near-perfect 11 f.p.s. Anyone who
tells you that an 11 f.p.s. variation can
be seen at the target, even at 55
yards, is being a bit of a fibber. Using
my own dwindling supply of washed,
weighed and lubricated Crosman
Premier, I clocked a 40-shot string
with a maximum variation of just 9 f.
p.s., and because those pellets are so
precious, I used that sequence to go
for ultimate benchrest accuracy. The
results were impressive and took me
back to my FT obsession days, when
Born in the U.S.A.
- designed to win over here.
creating
tiny clusters
on 55 yard targets
was compulsory conditioning
before every competition.
As the TM1000 began to
form cloverleaf groups from 25
yards to 50, I concentrated hard on
the range wind flags, pausing
between flutters, and slipping that
superb trigger during times of calm.
Sadly, I’m not as good as I was when
I won a few things on the FT circuit,
but I can still ‘feel’ when I’ve got it
right, and each time that happened,
the TM1000 dropped a pellet right on
the mark. It’s a fine feeling, and one
that never leaves a sad shooting man
like me.
The TM1000 will comfortably shoot
three-quarter-inch groups at 55
yards, and almost certainly smaller on
a perfect day, but the important news
is that this rifle cruises at a level of
efficiency its users will never
consistently match. I swapped the
Light Stream 4.5-14 x 44 for my old
FT scope, and under its 35 x
magnification, I put in groups that
would translate to a win on any field
target course, and that’s most of what
you can ask from a tournament rifle.
The rest of your request must be for
that rifle to help you extract a match
winning performance, on the day,
under competition conditions. The
rest is up to you, but if you’ve got a
RAW TM1000 in your hands, you’ve
got all the help you need to make you
a winner.
The field target market is definitely
one of the most demanding places in
which any manufacturer can
compete, but Martin Rutterford’s
been around for a long time, as have
those who work alongside him at
Rapid Air Weapons, so the arena
won’t be too daunting for them. This
company specialises in precision
The ported shroud looks neat
... as does the whole rifle.
components,
and when
everything comes
together as well as it has
in the TM1000, there’s every
chance that precision means prizes.
The RAW TM1000 is presented in
silver, but it can only be a matter of
time before it presents its users with
gold. ■
TECHNICAL SPECIFICATION
Model: TM1000
Manufacturer: Rapid Air Weapons
Country of origin: U.S.A.
Type: Regulated, pre-charged, field target match
rifle
Calibre: .177, .22, .20, .25
Cocking: Sidelever
Loading: Manual, direct to breech
Trigger: 2-stage adjustable
Stock type: American walnut, match type
adjustable
Weight: 10.2lbs (4.6kg) unscoped
Length: 43 ins. (1092mm) as tested. UK spec
models 39 ins (990mm)
Barrel: Lothar Walther 23 ins (584 mm), as
tested. UK spec models 19 ins. (483mm)
Fill pressure: 200 bar
Shots per charge: 120 in .177 at 11-plus ft.lbs.
Variation over 50 shots: 11 fps on test
Average energy: 11.3 ft.lbs.
Best group at 35 yards: 9mm diameter
Average group at 35 yards: 11mm
Best group at 55 yards: 18mm
Favoured pellet of test rifle: Crosman Premier /
Daystate Rangemaster Li
Other notable pellets on test: Air Arms Diabolo
Field, JSB
Options: Carbon fibre barrel shroud, nonthumbhole stock, knee raiser
Contact: Theoben Ltd. on 01353 777 861 www.
theoben.co.uk www.rapidairweapons.com
Price: From £1295.00
AIRGUN WORLD
21